1. Field of the Invention:
The present invention relates in general to safety ski bindings and has specific reference to a safety ski binding incorporating a plate for supporting the ski boot which comprises means for retaining said boot, said plate being pivotally mounted through adequate pivot means to the top surface of the ski.
2. Description of the Prior Art:
This safety ski binding pertains to the type wherein at least the means for retaining the toe end of the ski boot is movably mounted on the supporting plate and held by means of an abutment member rigid with the ski in its boot-retaining position but released when a predetermined angle of pivotal movement is overstepped. The abutment member comprises a control surface extending in the direction of the pivotal movement of the boot supporting plate engaged by a feeler connected to the boot retaining means when this means is in its operative or retaining position, the abutment member being mounted on the ski, beneath the boot supporting plate, and penetrating into the supporting plate wholly or partly by engaging a recess formed in said plate. Furthermore, this safety ski binding comprises a resilient device operative between the ski and the boot supporting plate and adapted, at least in the angular amplitude or area of the permissible pivoting movement afforded by the supporting plate, to produce an antagonistic, substantially constant torque.
In safety ski bindings of this general type the actuation of the release member in the direction to release the ski, boot is independent of the particular shape of the ski boot, or at least the operative members depending on the boot configuration are adapted to co-act with the boot at points thereof having no critical importance as far as the safety function of the binding is concerned. On the other hand, there is a certainty that in case of a skier's fall attended by the release of the safety or retaining system the boot will be separated completely from the supporting plate, so that the skier will not find him- or herself in the unpleasant position of walking on the snow with a plate attached to one or both feet, which may prove extremely dangerous or at least inconvenient, especially on a difficult ground. In a ski binding of this character the movable plate supporting the boot remains constantly attached to the ski.
A ski binding of the type broadly set forth hereinabove is known for example through the French Pat. No. 1,446,991. In this binding, the means for retaining the toe end of the ski boot consist of side jaws detachably connected to the boot supporting plate and retained by an abutment member rigid with the ski in their operative or connecting position with respect to the boot supporting plate when this boot is in its normal skiing position. When the predetermined angular amplitude of movement of the boot supporting plate is over-stepped against the force of the resilient return means acting on said boot, at least one of the feelers holding the above-mentioned jaws is caused to loose its contact with the abutment member, so that one of the jaws is released completely from said laterally moving supporting plate, thus releasing the boot. However, special provisions must be made to prevent one or the other lateral jaw, then completely detached from the plate, from being lost. Another inconvenience lies in the fact that the boot retaining means, i.e. the jaw, when released laterally, must perform not only the plate release movement, since said plate already projects beyond the side edge of the ski, but also another additional lateral movement, causing said boot retaining means to move outside of the ski. This requirement obviously interferes with the desiredly instantaneous boot release action and further implies the risk of damaging the supporting plate and subjecting this plate to abnormal mechanical stress, since the binding elements projecting considerably from the side edge of the ski might easily cause the binding and the ski itself to be driven into the ground surface.